This is going to be controversial but...

[rosesarered95]

I genuinely don't understand the concept of charging your children "rent" to live in their own home. Wouldn't you rather help them by allowing them to save as much money as possible (especially in this current economy) instead of taking money from them which may reduce the amount that they can save each month, resulting in it taking them a bit longer to move out?

I bought my own property on my own aged 25 and would have never been able to achieve this if I wasn't allowed to stay at home rent free and save as much of my salary as I could. Can I just add, I contributed to the household in other ways e.g cooking for the family weekly, cleaning etc.

I totally understand charging your children rent if you are on a lower income and genuinely need the money, but if this is not the case for you, why do you charge your children rent?

Mine are both in uni with part time jobs and we don’t charge rent however they do buy a takeaway meal once a month each for the family, we didn’t ask they offered.

some people once child benefit stops can’t manage without the help of the extra money and have to charge a minimal rent(my mum had to do this)

my ex sister in law has decided that once her children turn 18 they are no longer children and are split into all the bills. Eg her and my brother are adults and split the bills 2 ways, when my niece turned 18 she is then an adult and bills are split 3 ways and again split 4 ways when my other niece turned 18 regardless if they are at uni or not. Hence why no child now lives with them! Moved out , or thrown out as they wouldn’t comply!

im happy not to charge rent as long as they both knuckle down at uni and save as much as they can. Some months it’s £50 saved other months it’s £100 but as long as they save,

@rosesarered95 if you fully understand why ask?
When I stopped getting maintenance, CTC and CB I had to charge. They all have there own homes now, one has moved back in with their partner for over 2 years to save for a deposit, they pay their way I do not lose out for financially gain from them they are in the process of buying a house,

It's not rent. It's a contribution to household expenses. An adult who is earning should be supporting themselves and managing their income to cover living expenses, savings and other outgoings. They should also be taking on a share of household jobs too.

My parents charged me rent, from the age of 16, at 15% of my earnings. The day I purchased my first home, they gave me a cheque with every penny of it back.

I only ever asked for ds1 to buy some food and the odd tenner for electricity as his gaming computer was power hungry.

How ignorant. Not everyone is in a position to support another adult living in the house without paying.

I think even token rent makes sense. It means they know that as an adult that housing costs at least something.

Some children wouldn’t save anything, some parents give the “rent” back when they leave, some parents actually need that money.

I tend to think a fair rent for a responsible adult child if you don’t need it would be £100-£200 a month. Get them to pick up some little top up bits of shopping here and there, they can cook once a week. You know being a family and all working together.

If you’ve got a reckless with money adult child, probably best to charge them market value rent a room prices.

I can imagine this would get complicated if you had more than one child, with different needs/circumstances/abilities.
That aside, I think charging rent is a good and a 'safe' way of supporting your kids to learn about the value of money and the need to budget and manage finances.

It’s one of those life lessons that we pay for our way. That we dont depend on others to fund life styles.

Haha yes!! Was hoping for something more juicy than kids paying rent!

You're being ridiculous, and I say that as someone who not only didn't get financial support from my parents but was told to move out at age 17.

All that taught me was that I was never going to catch up with people who were given more practical, emotional and and financial support than I got.

I will absolutely help my kids get started in life if I can afford to.

I never charged rent, but asked for (and received) the amount it actually cost to have her living with me, loss of 25% council tax discount and small amount to cover energy and water. Everybody happy

@Dotcheck

what part of this do you not understand?

totally understand charging your children rent if you are on a lower income and genuinely need the money

That isn't actually charging them though, that's forcing them to save, which is entirely different.

You surely can't think that every young person is exactly like you, with your exact set of perfect financial skills, minded and able to save carefully before buying a house straight away when they move out. Or that every family is like yours. Paying rent to parents can be part of adjusting the role of the young person in the household from dependent to one who is treated as an adult. There are also many shades of grey in whether people can afford to keep other adults rent free or not.

Parents are trying to make responsible grown up humans. I imagine these decisions are often about how best to support them in growing up, being financially savvy, managing their budget, taking responsibility. There is more to parenting than paying for your child for as long as possible.

This. I could well see this coming if they came home to live after leaving for university, having more money and the ability to do whatever they want than we will if they come home and expect us to pay for all the necessities while they spend their own money on luxuries, trips, travel, etc while we're trying to cover the bills for fully functioning adults. Nope.

That's teaching them to live beyond their means, and not how I'm raising my children

Your indignation is going the wrong way. The op said she understands why some people need to charge their kids rent. But you ignored this. And if your son spends so much on shit, you haven't taught him much about money. And you are making life too cosy for him that he can afford to do so. So take a look at yourself before getting mad at others.

Both my children have moved hone after university. I paid all their rent whilst at uni and struggled to do so. They are now luckily earning tripple what I do and both pay a token rent. This is allowing me to afford to have them living here and they both save a large amount per month as they don't have to pay market rent and bills.

My parents charged me for rent as a way to introduce paying your own way, so when I moved out I knew I had to put a proportion away to pay bills etc.

Paying my rent to my parents was a stepping stone really, as what I paid them was about a third to what I then paid when I moved out.

@OneRingToRuleThemAll

mo they're not. Lots of parents who don't need the money charge their kids rent, just because they think they should.

Indeed.

I would charge DS maximum "rent" then give it back to him as a deposit for his own place. I'm single but have a good job and don't need his money.

Hm. I may be overcompensating a bit due to a childhood of neglect, but so far it has worked out ok with my DC. I agree with you OP in that I didn’t want my DC to struggle anything like I did, the same with my DH. So our opinion is that we don’t charge our DC rent or house bills while living at home.

If they are in FT education, we pay for everything and whatever they earn is theirs. If they are in FT work (and none have done this yet), then we would require they pay their bills as in their phone, their groceries, their clothes/toiletries, their entertainment, their transport. In both cases they’re expected to contribute labour on household chores.

All my DC are good savers and so the idea to charge rent to force them to save and then give it all back down the road isn’t really applicable to our family. If I did have an adult working DC living at home that was blowing all their earnings on weed, takeaways, and nights out/holidays then I would definitely be charging some sort of rent as a way to force saving. It wouldn’t actually teach them to save though, so I’d also be giving them a crash course in finances alongside doing this because I won’t always be around to tithe their earnings as a way to force saving. They need to develop this habit for themselves.

I don’t/won’t charge mine but do understand people who need the money

Id ask them for a very affordable amount and put it away for them for when they want deposit on flat or something